Lee Siew Mei v 1. ) Shereen Lim Binti Abdullah 2. ) Tan Wai Ping 3. ) Aida Phang Abdullah 4. ) Chew Chin Swee 5. ) Dato' Ngiam Foon

Case Significance

Illustrates that a defamation claimant must prove authorship, publication, reference and defamatory meaning against each defendant, and that failure to do so leads to dismissal even within consolidated litigation where a related action succeeds.

This High Court decision is one of a group of consolidated defamation suits arising from a dispute within a residential community society, and concerns a claim brought by a member of the society against several defendants who were fellow members and office-holders. In this suit the plaintiff alleged that statements made or published by the defendants referred to her and were defamatory; the defendants disputed reference and defamatory meaning and relied on defences including justification, fair comment and qualified privilege, and put the plaintiff to proof of authorship, publication and malice. The court, hearing this suit together with the principal action and the other related suit, considered whether each impugned statement had been authored, written, published or posted by the defendants, whether it referred to the plaintiff and was defamatory, and whether the defences were available. After a lengthy trial it concluded that the plaintiff had not established her claim against the defendants in this suit. Accordingly, the plaintiff's claim was dismissed. Applying the costs factors in Order 59 rule 16 of the Rules of Court 2012 and taking account of the seventeen-day consolidated trial with several witnesses and comprehensive submissions, the court ordered costs of RM80,000.00 in respect of this suit, subject to allocatur, while granting substantial relief to the plaintiffs in the principal action. The judgment illustrates that a defamation claimant must prove authorship, publication, reference and defamatory meaning against each defendant, and that a failure to do so results in dismissal notwithstanding the outcome of related suits. The court stressed that liability in defamation is personal, so that a plaintiff suing multiple defendants must connect each defendant to the authorship or publication of the specific statement complained of. Absent proof that these defendants wrote, posted or caused the publication of the impugned material, and absent evidence of a defamatory reference to the plaintiff, the claim could not succeed, and it was unnecessary to reach the pleaded defences.